2015 HAWAII UNIVERSITY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES
ARTS, HUMANITIES, SOCIAL SCIENCES & EDUCATION
JANUARY 03 - 06, 2015
ALA MOANA HOTEL, HONOLULU, HAWAII
HAWTHORNE IN EDEN
H ILL- S TANFORD, H OLLY
S OUTHWEST B APTIST U NIVERSITY
D EPARTMENT OF E NGLISH
Dr. Holly Hill-Stanford
Department of English
Southwest Baptist University.
Hawthorne in Eden
Synopsis:
In several of Nathaniel Hawthorne's tales, Puritan New England becomes a metaphor for
Eden. In developing this metaphor, Hawthorne expresses his desire for Utopia and laments
its loss, even as he expunges his guilt for his Puritan ancestry. Several examples of
Hawthorne's writings will be used to support this position.
Dr. Holly Hill-Stanford
Professor of English
Southwest Baptist University
Bolivar, MO
Hawthorne in Eden
Decades of criticism have detailed Nathaniel Hawthorne’s attempted expurgation of his
residual guilt from his ancestors’ role in the Salem witch trials. Frederick Crews even entitled
his book of Hawthorne criticism The Sins of the Fathers to emphasize the frequency with which
Hawthorne connects his writings to his ancestral roots in Puritan New England. Indeed, not only
is Hawthorne attempting to expunge his guilt for his ancestors’ past sins, he is also addressing
“original sin” when he equates early New England with the Garden of Eden, as also suggested
by Johanyak, Hardt, and others, and depicts Eden as the original Utopia. For Hawthorne, Puritan
New England becomes a metaphor for Eden. The corruption of Eden— and hence the loss of
Utopia—is the subject of many of his tales and novels as Hawthorne laments the demise of Eden.
The tales “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “The Maypole of Merry
Mount,” and “The Gray Champion” aptly illustrate this position and support the Eden metaphor.
In “Young Goodman Brown,” when the protagonist, Brown, journeys from Salem village
into the nearby forest, he is not entering the wilderness of Eden for the first time from an outside
world, as Hardt would argue he is (252); rather, he is merely moving deeper into Eden. The
world in which he has already been existing, Salem village, has been his Eden. Like a young
Adam in Eden, in Salem, Brown has found happiness and contentment with his Eve, his wife
Faith. Brown also maintains the innocence of the biblical Eden while he resides in Salem.
Religious figures are revered; self-respect is upheld; belief in the goodness of elders, church
figures, and family is upheld. But as he ventures further into the actual wilderness of his own
Eden, Brown begins to face temptations, as did Adam and Eve in their Eden.
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Enticed by Satan to eat from the Tree of Knowledge (not the Tree of Life, as the biblical
story is often mistakenly told) in Eden, Eve is lured by the tantalizing promise of Satan that
acquiring knowledge by eating of the forbidden fruit will make her knowledge (and Adam’s, if
he chooses to partake of the fruit, as well) on a par with God. This apparent desire for
knowledge on the part of Eve actually manifests itself in a veiled desire for the power and
authority of God, for with knowledge, Eve (and potentially Adam) will acquire power—power to
judge, power to save or destroy, power to conquer. Likewise, the temptation offered Goodman
Brown (and his veiled Faith) is not the enticement to receive eternal life, or even abundant
blessings. Instead, he, too, is offered the knowledge of “hidden sin.” Acceptance of this
knowledge will give Brown power over his fellow citizens of Salem as he begins to judge their
actions, and, in a reversal of his earlier thoughts, begins to “deem [himself] holier than” they
(par. 63). These judgment calls will distance Brown from his community, thereby corrupting the
sanctity and innocence of Eden.
The wilderness metaphor continues as Brown’s temptations parallel not only those in the
garden of Eden, but also the temptations of Christ in the wilderness with its potential to be a new
Eden. In the biblical account, Christ, alone in the wilderness, faces the first temptation from
Satan in the form of physical nourishment. This temptation to succumb to Satan’s enticement is
especially challenging for Christ because he has been fasting for forty days. Brown’s first
temptation to follow the devil is likewise challenging since his first temptation in the wilderness
is the appearance of Goody Cloyse, his catechism teacher. Because she has been Brown’s
spiritual advisor, he is definitely thrown off balance when he sees her in the heathen wilderness,
far from the sanctity of Salem village. His faith is further shaken when Cloyse consorts with the
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devil. Christ’s second temptation in the wilderness becomes even more intense as Satan tries to
persuade him to demonstrate his power over physical harm by calling on the angels to attend
him. This temptation is a significant challenge for Christ since He knows he already has power
over harm. Similarly, Brown’s temptation increases in intensity with his second temptation
when his pastor and deacon appear in the wilderness, also for the sinister purpose of consorting
with the devil. Initially shaken by seeing his spiritual advisor with the devil, Brown is even more
tempted to abandon his faith by seeing that the spiritual leaders of Salem have seemingly
abandoned theirs. In the third and greatest temptation at this point in His earthly life, Christ is
tempted by Satan to receive all the kingdoms in the world if he will just bow down and worship
Satan. Brown’s third and greatest temptation becomes even more personal when he thinks his
wife, Faith, also his allegorical religious faith, has already succumbed to the wiles of Satan.
Faith’s seeming capitulation to evil is the ultimate challenge to Brown’s already shaky religious
faith. Unfortunately, unlike Christ, who successfully resists his three temptations and thus
perpetuates the hope for a new Eden, Brown has already traveled so far down the path of
temptation that he cannot escape with his innocence. Instead, his flirtation with evil causes the
perversion and ruin of his Puritan Eden and his idyllic existence in it; he is cast out of his Eden
because of his knowledge of sin as surely as Adam and Eve are cast out of theirs.
In “The Maypole of Merry Mount,” Hawthorne chooses Merry Mount, an actual
settlement by non-Puritans, as his setting. Mirth and jollity seem to reign in this Eden, founded
according to Hawthorne’s account, two hundred years prior to this story, by English settlers who
“imagined a wild philosophy of pleasure, and came hither [to New England] to act out their latest
day-dream “ (par. 12). In contrast to other settlers who came seeking wealth or religious
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freedom in their own vision for a new Eden, the settlers of Merry Mount came only for pleasure.
For them, a new Eden meant a land of unbridled revelry and merry-making. Indeed, “it
[becomes] high treason to be sad at Merry Mount” (par. 10). Very little “work” is required in
the paradisal Merry Mount, as evidenced by the fact that “[a]t harvest time,…their crop [is] of
the smallest” when compared to other those of other settlers (par. 13); rather, for these “people of
the Golden Age, [their] chief…husbandry [is] to raise flowers!” (par. 2). Fittingly, the main
symbol of their frivolous lifestyle is the maypole, bedecked throughout the year with seasonal
flowers, just as the actual garden of Eden would have been. Of course, since Eden would not be
complete without Adam and Eve, Merry Mount has its own Adam and Eve in the characters of
Edgar and Edith, also being celebrated as the Lord and Lady of May.
Hawthorne’s depiction of Merry Mount seems to symbolize his hope that, removed from
the rigidity of Puritanism, Utopia could actually survive in early New England. Edgar and Edith,
the Adam and Eve in the story, further epitomize the desire for Utopia. Unfortunately, the clash
between non-belief and Puritanism creates the “inevitable blight of early hope” (par. 37); in other
words, the corruption of Eden. Foreshadowing the demise of Merry Mount’s Eden, Edith is the
first to voice her concerns that the lifestyle they enjoy in Merry Mount is merely a vision and the
“mirth unreal” (par. 10), not unlike Young Goodman Brown’s view of Puritan Salem, his Eden,
after his journey into the forest. The maypole, symbol of joy for the citizens of Merry Mount,
foreshadows the ruin of Eden in that it represents an inversion of the cross, demonstrating that
Eden, even a seemingly new Eden, will be lost. Yet another foreshadowing that the idyllic life in
Merry Mount will be lost appears when the Puritans watching the revelry from a distance already
view it as evil instead of paradise when they compare its
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participants to devils and brutes, much like Young Goodman Brown does while watching
participants in satanic worship in what was once his Eden.
The inevitable clash between the frivolity and mirth of the Merry Mount folks and the
solemnity and somberness of the Puritans ultimately ends in the downfall of Merry Mount, thus
crushing hopes for a new Eden. As Wagenknecht puts it, “Though they think they are living in
the Golden Age, they are really only playing at it” (28). When Puritan leader Endicott chops
down the beloved maypole, Merry Mount becomes the “benighted wilderness” (par. 37). Even
the leaves and rosebuds fall from the maypole, as Hawthorne uses the flower imagery to
symbolize the fall of Eden. Neither the stern rigidity of the Puritan religion nor the irresponsible
frivolity of Merry Mount could sustain an earthly attempt to re-create a new Eden since God had
not ordained it. As Hawthorne himself explained, “From the moment that [Edith and Edgar]
truly loved, they had subjected themselves to earth’s doom of care and sorrow, and troubled joy,
and had no more a home at Merry Mount” (par. 11). Yet in a bit of a hopeful ending, “the young
lovers, expelled from their Eden, face the future in much the same spirit as Adam and Eve
themselves” (Wagenknecht 27) as they “suppor[t] each other along the difficult path” (par. 41) of
life and “fall upward into grace” (Williams qtd. in Wagenknecht 27).
In another example, Hawthorne uses the New England town of Milford to depict Eden in
“The Minister’s Black Veil.” This New England town seems to have all the ingredients
necessary for Paradise on earth. Sundays are set aside for worship, with the Sexton faithfully
ringing the church bell, calling the community to prayer and communion. Attractive young girls
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and “spruce bachelors” (par. 1) attend the services, while children joyfully accompany their
parents to the Milford meeting-house. Even the elderly attending the services are venerated by
the minister and the other parishioners. The minister, Reverend Hooper, is known as a “good
preacher” (par. 12) who dresses with “clerical neatness” (par. 6) and presides at weddings with a
pleasant demeanor. His orderly life includes Sunday lunch at Squire Sanders’ home. Life in
Milford passes calmly, routinely, and contentedly for its citizens, creating a Puritan Eden,
complete with its own Adam and Eve in the form of Rev. Hooper and his fiancé, Elizabeth.
Unfortunately, as with other attempts to create Eden on earth, the Utopian
existence the citizens of Milford seem to enjoy and thrive in does not last. In a reversal of the
biblical Eden, it is not the metaphorical Eve of the story who causes the loss of paradise.
Instead, when Reverend Hooper, the metaphorical Adam, begins wearing a black veil to conceal
his face, a darkness descends on the New England town. The blackness of the veil casts its
shadow over every aspect of the once idyllic town of Milford. Hooper’s congregation responds
with shock and horror, and rumors in regard to his sanity run rampant. People of every age
shrink from his veiled presence. Even Elizabeth, Hooper’s intended, cannot convince him to
reveal the secret of the veil and instead, ends up retreating from her affianced in revulsion.
Hooper does become known throughout New England for his “awful power over souls that were
in agony for sin” (par. 45). He even preaches the election sermon for one of the governors and
lives a “long life, irreproachable in outward act” (par. 46). However, despite Reverend Hooper’s
outward semblance of living a good life, his veil becomes the downfall of Eden.
The reason Hooper chooses to adorn his face with the black, dismal piece of fabric is
never revealed by Hawthorne. When Elizabeth intimates that the veil is perhaps to hide secret
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sin or even “innocent sorrow” (par. 33), Hooper merely responds with vague “what if it is”
responses, effectively destroying the fellowship between himself and his Eve. The veil also
creates an aura of gloom that “enable[s] him to sympathize with all dark affections” (par. 45),
ending any pretense of Eden in Milford, just as Young Goodman Brown’s “sympathy of [his]
human hear[t] for sin” (par. 63) enabled him to perceive evil in everyone and ultimately ended
his paradise in Salem. Likewise, although the minister’s rationale for wearing the veil is never
revealed, just as his face is never again revealed, the intimation of hidden sin has the same effect
as actual sin, causing a loss of Eden.
In “The Gray Champion,” Hawthorne presents a variation on his corruption of Eden
theme. In this tale, the Puritan founders of New England sought to create a Utopia in a new land,
confident of “Heaven’s blessing on a righteous cause” (par. 3) if they were threatened by
anything in their new Eden. Sixty years later, though never wholly free from their tether to
Mother England and thus, never truly achieving Utopia, the colonists of Boston nonetheless
enjoy a somewhat idyllic existence “with far more freedom than . . .the native subjects of Great
Britain” (par.1). However, that life is threatened by the rapidly tightening noose of British
control, led by Sir Edmund Andros, King James II’s able and vicious administrator in New
England. After rumors reach the New England shore that King James may soon be replaced by
William, Prince of Orange, whose ascension to the throne of England “would be the triumph of
civil and religious rights and the salvation of New England” (par. 2), Andros assembles his
troops and co-horts on the streets of Boston for a show of force against the colonists who also
assemble in a potential showdown between good and evil.
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As the British contingent, synonymous with Satan in this Hawthorne tale, steadily
advances towards the Puritan settlers, old Governor Bradstreet, symbol of goodness even though
he is now nearly ninety years old, comes forth on the streets of Boston to encourage the settlers
to “pray for the welfare of New England” (par. 9) as the settlers prepare to fight for their version
of Eden. Soon after, the British leaders and soldiers come close to the settlers. Riding in their
midst is the Episcopal clergyman, chief symbol of the religious persecution that had caused the
early Puritans to retreat to the wilderness of New England in hopes of creating their own
religious Utopia. In desperation at the sight of the solidified forces of church and state, one of
the men in the assembled crowd of settlers cries out in an impassioned voice for a champion to
be raised up to defend them, reminiscent of the ancient Israelites crying to the Lord for help
(Judges 4:3). Suddenly, the figure of an ancient man dressed in the garb of the earliest Puritans
emerges as if miraculously from the throng of settlers. Though he is unrecognized by any of the
current settlers, they feel certain he is “some old champion of the righteous cause” (par. 22) who
will secure the “deliverance of New England” (par. 22). Indeed, their hopes are fulfilled as the
“gray champion” stands up to the governor and his minions until they back down and ultimately
become prisoners of the settlers.
The salvation of the early New England settlers was championed by an apparition, the
spirit of freedom according to the narrator, but also a metaphor for Christ, whose appearance was
heralded by a voice crying in the wilderness, just as Christ was heralded by the “voice of one
crying in the wilderness” in the person of John the Baptist (Mark 1:3, KJV). In the inverse of the
corruption and loss of Eden Hawthorne demonstrates in “Young Goodman Brown,” “The
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Minister’s Black Veil,” and “The Maypole of Merry Mount,” the wilderness of New England in
“The Gray Champion” becomes more like Eden. The inhabitants are not cast out, and they have
hope for a better future under more lenient British rule.
Whether or not Hawthorne was successful in expunging his residual guilt from his
forefathers’ part in the dissolution of Puritan Salem is uncertain. What is certain is that he was
successful in his depiction of early New England as a metaphor for Eden, as well as in his lament
for the corruption of that Eden and the subsequent loss of paradise. In “Young Goodman
Brown,” Puritan Salem, the metaphor for Eden, is lost without hope for redemption when one
man’s flirtation ultimately leads to his knowledge of sin, much as Eve’s desire for knowledge
caused the loss of the original Eden. In “The Maypole of Merry Mount,” the Utopian existence
in Merry Mount, the metaphoric Eden, begins to erode simply due to the censorial observations
and thoughts of the neighboring Puritans, just as Goodman Brown’s thoughts of evil corrupt his
Eden. Any hope of Eden is completely lost when the Puritan leader chops down the maypole,
symbolically causing the fall of Eden. Nonetheless, this story has a bit of a hopeful ending as the
young protagonists, the metaphorical Adam and Eve, now expelled from their Eden, go
“heavenward” (par. 41). In “The Minister’s Black Veil,” the New England town of Milford is
the metaphorical Eden, but like the metaphorical Edens in the two previous stories, this Eden is
lost when the mere suggestion of hidden sin, created in this case by a piece of fabric,
successfully destroys the illusion of Eden without hope of reclamation, just as in “Young
Goodman Brown.” In “The Gray Champion,” the last of the four stories discussed in this paper,
Hawthorne presents an inversion of this typical loss of Eden story when salvation comes to the
New England wilderness through a metaphorical Christ. Perhaps Hawthorne allowed these
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Settlers of the Boston wilderness more of Utopia because they were seeking religious freedom
and not knowledge that may bring with it power that so easily corrupts. Regardless,
Hawthorne’s Edens are vivid pictures of New England and the challenges the early settlers faced
not only to their physical survival, but to their spiritual well-being as well.
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Works Cited
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Crews, Frederick. The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne’s Psychological Themes. NY: Oxford
UP, 1966. Print.
Hardt, John S. “Doubts in the American Garden: Three Cases of Paradisal Skepticism.” Studies
in Short Fiction 25.3 (1988): 249-259. Ebscohost 2005. Web. 04 Oct. 2014.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Gray Champion.” Pearson 861-866.
---. “The Maypole of Merry Mount.” Pearson 882-890.
---. “The Minister’s Black Veil.” Pearson 872-882.
---. “Young Goodman Brown.” Pearson 1033-1042.
Johanyak, Debra. “Romanticism’s Fallen Edens: The Malignant Contribution of Hawthorne’s
Literary Landscapes.” CLA Journal 42.3 (1999): 353-363. MLA International
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Pearson, Norman Holmes, ed. The Complete Novels and Selected Tales of Nathaniel
Hawthorne. NY: Modern Library, 1965. Print.
Wagenknecht, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Man, His Tales, and Romances. NY:
Continuum, 1989. Print.